


Time Flies on the Wind's Breath

by Red_Seraphim



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-02
Updated: 2012-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:26:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Seraphim/pseuds/Red_Seraphim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another originally written for a friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Flies on the Wind's Breath

You're Dave Strider, and you honestly feel like such shit right now. You're really lucky you got an apartment, even if it's a hell hole, falling apart piece of shit-estate. Shit's not even real. Just shit.

But you guess you'll have to take what you can get with...well, these wings.

Getting a job wasn't all that easy either. You're working in storage at a Wal-Mart, and you're probably not going to ever get promoted to anything else because, well, you have fucking giant wings and people flip a shit sometimes. You have to get their two hours earlier each day just so no one on the street sees you and tries to call animal control.

You're moving boxes and shit around for hours on end, and enduring the stares of your co-workers who never even fucking introduced themselves to you. The only time you actually don't feel like absolute shit is when you're up on the roof of your building, because there's no one there to quietly think you're a freak and burn holes into the back of your neck with all the staring.

And then one late afternoon your phone rings in your pocket. You pull it out. Well. Egbert. That's sort of strange. You click it and put it up to your ear.

"Hey Egderp, what's up?"

"Well, I'm at your apartment. I've been knocking on your door for like, ten minutes. Are you in there?"

"Shit, sorry. I'm up on the roof. I'll come down."

"Nah, it's okay. I'm coming up," he hangs up. A minute or two after you hear his footsteps and then you feel a breeze and hear him touch down lightly beside you.

"Watching the sunset?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What's got you asking?"

"Well, you only ever really got up on your roof to look at the sunset when you were upset about something."

This was weird. He was talking about you like...like you were Dave to him. But you're not. You're 'Davesprite'. The failed Dave, the Dave who couldn't save him, who wasn't the love of his life and the one with wings.

"I'm just stressed out."

"What about?" he says, plopping himself down beside you with all the grace and poise of a toppling pile of matchsticks.

You sigh and push your head back against the vents on top of your building, maybe a little too hard, because you can hear how much it vibrates and booms with sound. But you don't care. "Fucking everything John. My fucking wings and shitty job and freakishness and my being."

You can see him flinching with every f-word you say, probably because your voice rises and shouts it. You don't want to shout, but Jesus Christ you're so fucking angry. You want to wreck something. You stand and you kick the vent you were leaning against and you make sizable dent.

"Dave-" he starts.

"I'm sick and tired of not being me anymore! I'm not really even Dave to you anymore. You've got a Dave. A nice, human Dave, a real Dave. A Dave who you've know for all the years from when you met him, who didn't spend months after your death feeling like shit, and who didn't become little more than a game mechanic."

"Dave. Listen to me," he starts, but you don't want to. You feel so much rage right now. It feels like your intestines and your stomach is on fire and your head hurts and you just want to be alone. You unfurl your wings and fly up as quickly as you can. Your flight isn't elegant, but you could give less than a fuck right now.

"DAVE!" he shouts. Goddamn it he can follow you. You can feel the current change from your wings. He's adjusting it so you fall. Well, fuck that. You flap higher and then do a dive. You don't need currents to choose where you want to go. But he's hot on your heels, and he's specialized in fucking up your flying. You feel a sudden gust push against you and hold you in place, and then you feel John slam into you with all his weight, wrapping his oddly strong arms around you and you feel yourself descending slowly and carefully. You struggle and squirm, but there isn't any getting away. Doesn't mean you stop. You actually feel pretty exhausted by the time he's got you down to the roof again, pinned you down beneath him with his knees lightly pressed on your wings and his hands cuffing your arms. You'd be a little turned on if you weren't so mad. And boy are you mad.

"Egbert, get the fuck off of me."

"No, Dave. I'm not getting off of you. You're being an ass."

"I'm being an ass? I want to be alone!"

"No you don't!"

"Don't tell me how I feel John!" you struggle again. He headbutts you, probably a little harder than he intended.

"Then tell yourself! You shouted at me because I don't think you're Dave. You're Dave! I know you are! I'm thankful that you saved me. But I love...my Dave, I guess. You loved your John. I'm not the John you loved either, according to you. I'm another John. I didn't know how you felt because I didn't want to take any place that you held for that John. I'm not going to steal any memory of your best friend. I'm different. I'm a John who you saved from screwing up."

You breathe. Not just because you haven't really being doing it because you're an angry little shit, but you seriously just took in his words like oxygen. You hadn't thought about what it was like for him. Two Daves. Two guys who you figured out that he had feelings for because you both knew you weren't Dave to him. You were so focused on how shitty you were feeling you didn't even consider...

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I just...I could hardly stand seeing you so upset. Neither of you is good at hiding your feelings, you know that?" he says, taking a heaving breath himself, before he suddenly stops and pushes your hair back.

"What is it?" you ask.

"Oh shit you're bleeding!"

"Really? Oh."

"Shitshitshit," he says through his teeth, and he quickly gets off of you and moves to your side and throws your arm over his shoulder and starts walking you towards the stairs back into the building.

"Dude, calm down. Is it bad?" you ask him.

"Yes! You're bleeding Dave! In no place or time is that okay!"

He gets you about halfway down the stairs until he just decides to fly you to his apartment and take care of you. He tries to carry you bridal style at one point, but it turns out that he almost dropped you several stories. You, on the other hand, feel very calm about the whole thing. Sure, you can't feel your legs very well, but you're pretty used to that from when you were actually a sprite. It almost feels more natural.

And then you wake up. You're lying in an apartment unfamiliar to you. You look to your right and there you see...you. Dave. His Dave.

"Hey, man, you're awake."

"How can you tell?" you ask. You're pretty sure your shades are still on. You touch your face. Or no, they aren't.

"Cause John took them off. Here, have them before he comes back," he says, and he holds your shades out to you. You take them and give him a curt, Strider nod, an unspoken 'thanks bro'. He nods back.

"John told me what happened."

You just keep looking at him, now through your shades.

"Not cool, bro. Gotta keep cool."

"I did keep cool. I kept cool all through that game," you say, sitting up.

And then suddenly he's got his arms around you. What the hell? Why are you hugging yourself?

"What the hell?"

He lets go. "You're staying here, fyi."

"What?"

"Your apartment. I talked to your landlord. You're going to stay here instead. You need to find a new job and a better place that's not shit-estate."

That makes you smile a little. He really is, well, isn't, but kinda is, you.

"I'm not going to be...intruding?" you ask.

"You mean cockblocking? Nope. We'll just bang in this bed," he says, patting the bed on the other side of the room from you, his voice dripping with irony.

You almost let a smile crack. But goddamn it, even if you're a bird and a game mechanic, you're a Strider.

"You tap that ass while it's hot," you simply say in reply. Man, it's been awhile since you've had a decent dosage of irony.


End file.
